What Hath 'Fast and Furious' Wrought

So I guess they made a new "Fast and Furious" movie and I guess it made buckets of money over the weekend and how nice for everyone. I saw the first two and realized that my personal mix of brain cells and testosterone wasn't the sort required to appreciate these things and so good health to those who make and enjoy 'em.

That is, so long as they limit themselves to movie theaters.

Which they don't.

Yesterday I drove from Medford to Portland. As it happens, I am a fairly aggressive driver, taught in the unforgiving streets of New York City and refined during a decade on the freeways of Los Angeles. And even though I was babying my car homeward (it may have an oil issue and spent the weekend in a dealership in Medford while I was in Ashland), I still made the 290-mile trip in about 4 hours and 15 minutes: a pretty good clip.

BUT....from Eugene on, I was sporadically buzzed by baseball-capped boys in souped-up Japanese sedans -- Hondas and Subarus and Toyotas tricked out and spoilered and hugging the ground -- playing games of sneak-and-dash through packs of traffic and seeking like-minded (if, indeed, they can said to be minded at all) fellows for little sprint races right out there on the busy-ish highway. You'd see a flash of something low in a mirror, then have some guy right beside you looking for an opening for his car that many folks wouldn't try to parallel park in, then darting into said space and out, again, just as quick. Infuriating -- and not just because I couldn't play along with my suspect engine. And there were more than just a few of them -- and more and more of them as I got closer to Portland.

Me

As I shook my puny old fist bootlessly against these whippersnappers, it dawned on me that they were, techinically, driving under the influence -- of a film, in this case, not booze or pills or herbal relaxants. I was reminded of Eddie Murphy's routine about how hard it was to be a black man at "'Rocky' time," when it seemed that every pasty-skinned chowderhead who could bench-press his IQ in deadweights thought every black man he encounted was Apollo Creed in need of a beating.

Well, now it's "Fast and Furious" time, and every would-be Dominic Toretto is out looking for action on the highway -- and causing a little bit of potentially deadly havoc in the pursuit. Boys have always been and will always be boys, but somehow I feel that we were all a little safer when they were imitating Tom Mix or even Rocky Balboa instead of using the freeways as playgrounds.

And as it's now inevitable that we'll have a fifth and, likely, a sixth of these films, I suppose that "Fast and Furious" weekend will join New Year's, Halloween, St. Patrick's Day, Cinco de Mayo, Mardi Gras and the other drinking-and-driving holidays as good times to stay clear of busy roads.

Who knew that Vin Diesel packed the same sort of punch as Old Grandad?